Barack Obama's press conference on health-care was essentially a series of stump speeches before pulling the "race card" out, derailing the entire discussion on health-care.
Most of the questions asked were pitiful, as were the follow ups. It was like a softball game, slow pitch of course- no, it was closer to a tee-ball game. When thousands of journalists would donate their kidney to have an opportunity to ask the President of the United States a question on national television, and you have journalistic hacks like Lynn Sweet asking Obama his opinion about race relations in relation to an arrest in Cambridge, MA?!
Aside from the fact the President shouldn't be making comments on local arrests that are under investigation, why would the final question of the night go so far off topic from health-care, an issue the mainstream media have been salivating over? I believe there is more to it. But first we have to look at who asked the question, where the question was placed, and the subject of the question- it all fits together like a sick little puzzle.
Who asked the "race relation question? Lynn Sweet- she's from Obama's hometown Chicago, a bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, and a corespondent for none other then...The "Obama loving" non-news online source Huffington Post. Remember them, they were the ones that had the planted question in a past Obama press conference.
If you noticed, Lynn Sweet stood up without being called on, and was about to get her question in ahead of the next journalist, Steve Koff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It was as if she got her cue- that it was "about that time" to wrap things up- to derail the discussion. It was an awkward moment, but Mr. Koff asked his question and it was the one time Obama answered a question in one paragraph- because he really wanted to get to Lynn Sweet's question. He even said, "All right, I tried to make that short so that Lynn Sweet would get her last question in."
And Lynn Sweet proceeded to derail the entire press conference with this question, "Thank you, Mr. President. Recently Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge. What does that incident say to you and what does it say about race relations in America?"
What the heck does an arrest in Cambridge, MA have to do with national health-care? Nothing. And Obama had no place to even make any comment on the issue since he wasn't there- and he admitted he didn't know the details. He even said, "I don't know all the facts...Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts".
As a lawyer, Obama should have known good and well that you don't make comments on ongoing investigations. But he did anyway. And then he went on a diatribe about race:
"As you know, Lynn, when I was in the state legislature in Illinois, we worked on a racial profiling bill because there was indisputable evidence that blacks and Hispanics were being stopped disproportionately. And that is a sign, an example of how, you know, race remains a factor in this society."
I wouldn't be surprised if Lynn Sweet, in some way, was a planted question. It was obvious that Obama really wanted to get her question in. But for this question to do its job, to mask the pitiful health-care discussion, it had to be last. It was the sweet thick icing on a tasteless sponge cake. But like cavity causing sugar filled icing, this question just may have backfired on the president.
News Conference transcript
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1 comment:
DELIVERANCE!
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